UF's Urban Meyer Speaks on 2009 Recruiting Class

Here's how the Florida Gators Head football coach Urban Meyer spoke after national signing day came to an end for the reigning National Champs:

OPENING STATEMENTIt’s a great day for Florida football. We have some real qualityyoung people that are going to join our program. This is really anevaluation friendly business we’re in. It may seem like there are alot of things in which you have to rely upon faith but really you canevaluate it and really look at all things. What that means is that thereis statistical analysis of everything that you do in athletics.

First of all, you qualify and get to campus. That’s something that welook at. When you look at our last four signing classes, one thing thatthey must see is our ability to get kids on campus. And that is not aseasy as most people think. Our coaches do a great job and I want to say we’re at about a 90 percent ratio when it comes to that. When we go out and recruit a young man, with the exception of one or two, ourhistory is to make sure that these guys make it to campus.

Number two, is that they play and contribute and become a member of the team. A member of the team is not someone who wears a hat on the sideline. He’s a guy who steps on the field and makes plays and helps you win games. I know all of this is rather obvious but sometimes it’s not.

Number three is that you win championships with the people that yourecruit. Then if they graduate and are blessed enough to move on to the NFL. Those are the five areas of how we judge and evaluate a recruiting class. I am proud to say that there is a group of young men who just left our program that basically hit it right on the dot. As far asgraduating they are one hundred percent, they won two NationalChampionships, two SEC Championships. They played 44 games in the last three years, which is the best in America. Several players will beselected in the draft. That is just our evaluation.

I am very proud of our presentation here at Florida. It took a while,but with the help of our administration, and with the help of oursupport staff, and our assistant coaches, our presentation here atFlorida is tremendous. What I mean by that is since we are in such anevaluation friendly business, we evaluate academics. And most peoplesay academics are really important, and at Florida they are veryimportant. Our graduation rates are the highest in the SEC and are thehighest they’ve been in awhile. And this past year we had a onehundred percent graduation rate, and that is why our presentation istremendous.

Our facilities have become elite. They are some of the finest inAmerica. You walk into this facility and you see the All-Americanbricks and then you see the trophy cases and all of our national awardsand most importantly the championship presentation is tremendous. And the third part of our presentation is the development of the players.You walk into our weight room and you know that it maximizes our players production.

We addressed what we look for in a player. We are very proud of theguys that we brought in here. Number one, we look for high characterpeople and then, competitors. We had a little bit of a tough dealbecause we had 22 players coming back on defense; 22, not 11, not nine, not four. We’ve got our top 22 players coming back. And I have toreally take my hat off to some of those young guys who stepped up. The Jelani Jenkins of the world, just a great football player who had many many choices, who’s put on a Florida hat and is going be a Gator. He didn’t ask how many linebackers we had, he just said ‘I want to play.’ Sort of a lot like when Tim Tebow was recruited. I don’tremember him saying ‘How many quarterbacks do you have?’ Hedidn’t really care. Percy Harvin and Spikes, those guys are a bigpart of the conversation.

We’ve done a great job recruiting. Our staff has done phenomenal.We had a few obstacles, even when you win a National Championship.However, the ones that we brought in are tremendous. Andre Debose, Idon’t want to single any guy out, but he is as good as there is. Ithink he is the best player in America. Watching him on film, for whatwe do, for our style of offense, for what we need right now, with thedeparture of Percy Harvin, that is a critical element, because we arenot going to change our offense. We will adapt our offense to ourpersonnel.

On how WR Andre Debose fits into the Gator offense:The ‘Percy Position.’ That’s what I hear on the recruiting trailall the time. ‘We’re going to use you like Florida uses him.’ Ithink he is perfect. I don’t want to put too much pressure on him andI have a history of doing that. Here’s the best thing about Andre,he’s got a great family. He has a great mom and a great father.He’s also got tremendous speed. With the proper training thisspring, he is going to be one of the fastest in the state of Florida.The thing that sold me was during a bye week, I went to watch him play a game and he did something Percy Harvin [would do]. At that position you have to be able to put your foot in the ground and drop your pads on someone. Not dive around him, you have to be able to drop your pads. I saw him drop his pads on someone and that’s when I was sold. We have to get him ready, and the best thing is he is not far from here. [He will] come up for spring practice and we will try to get him playing.

On securing LB Jelani Jenkins:He told us a while back, probably a week ago. It was a great day forus. He is a 4-point student, he will be a captain. I will bedisappointed if he is not a captain for us someday. He comes from anunbelievable family and he is exactly what we are looking for.

On the amount of de-commitments in the past month & his position onearly signing period:What it also makes me rethink is they have basically taken the headcoach out of recruiting. I always like to recruit the back half becauseI knew the players through text messages from spring recruiting.Basically a head coach, now, is not allowed to spring recruit and notallowed to text message and basically gets one phone call a week. Itshard to develop relationships that way. I am going to fight like crazyto get them on campus even more so in the spring. You don’t get thatrelationship with a high school coach and you certainly don’t get itwith a player. When a head coach goes out, you’re seeing seven schools and you never get to just sit down like an area coach does. I have thought about that early signing, I’m not as opposed to it as I usedto be.

On the possibility of adding more players to the commitment list:Oh yeah, there sure is. There is one that has not yet signed today, Iguess. There is a possibility.

On recruiting for the offensively line:The way we break this recruiting down is that everyone has an area.Each guy is a general manager. I have been on staffs before where a guy complains he doesn’t have enough players. There is none of that atFlorida because your job is to go get the players. With Steve [Addazio],you look at who he’s brought in here since he’s been the offensivelyline coach. It is sole evaluation. There is no, ‘who do you think.’Our offensively line is probably the best in the SoutheasternConference, probably one of the top two in America, I think the numberone in America. We’re going to have two tackles leave and then youhave some other good players who have potential to play in the NationalFootball League. So, we had to bring in five, because we had someinjuries there. Brining five players with one grouping, that’s hardbecause they usually cancel each other out. You can’t sign fourlinebackers because they aren’t going to want to compete with one ofthem. So with the offensive line we addressed the tackle issue, theguard issue and the center issue. That is one of the best recruitingjobs I think were going to have. To say you are going to try to get fiveand actually get quality players is impressive.

On being able to sell either playing time or the success of a program:[Selling playing time] means you’re not very good. That doesn’t sitwell with the stomach and the lifestyle of a coach’s label here. Tohave a good football team, it is hard. There are some players wherethat’s the number one thing they are looking for, playing time.Playing time isn’t guaranteed at Florida much anymore. One thing thatwe do guarantee is that we don’t redshirt you. There is no such thingas a redshirt at Florida anymore. We try to make that real clear. Ifyou’re playing, you’re going. Now, if you don’t play, you have anextra year. But there is no redshirt policy at Florida. We eliminatedthat about two years ago. Every freshman comes in and plays. Now, ifyou’re not good enough to play, they won’t play. We sell that. Iwould much rather be in a position where you have some good players. A couple of years ago [though], we could tell them they would start. But, [how we are now] should be the way at Florida.

On OG Jon Halapio:Well, he is one of my favorite cultures. He is Polynesian. I am veryexperienced with Polynesians, 25 percent of my team at Utah wasPolynesian. We wish there were more Polynesians in the state of Florida because I would recruit them. I love their work ethic, but mostimportantly, I love their family. The way that they are all together. Hecomes from a brilliant family, a bunch of great people. He is 305-poundsand looks like he is 260-pounds. He is a guy that will compete forplaying time this year, that’s how confident I am. He will be a325-pound player before you know it.

On DT Gary Brown:He was a little more difficult. Obviously he is in the shadows of ourrival. A lot of our guys, Chuck Heater and Dan McCarney, worked veryhard and that was not a final deal until it was a final deal. He hadsome work to do in the classroom and next thing you know, he stole ourhearts at camp and played very well in the Under Armor All-AmericanBowl. He solidified his status with us as far as wanting him here. Itwasn’t an easy battle, I’m glad we got that signature. He is a bigdude and the sooner he gets ready to play, he has the talent to playreal fast here.

On WR Andre Dubose saying he did not wanting to be compared to WR PercyHarvin:I have to watch that and that’s my fault. That happens when you showfilm, that the guy is really good as a player. I don’t want to saycomparison but you watch the film and you say, ‘Wow.’ Whether helikes it or not, there is. That’s not a bad thing to be compared to,that’s a compliment very much so.

On 6-3, 225-pound QB Jordan Reed:We run a unique style of offense here. However, we adapted to whoever we have. He came to camp and was kind of an under-the-radar guy and dominated our camp.

On recruit Jon Bostic:Jon is already on campus and our strength coach says he is already one of the best looking players on our team. He has a great family andhe’s high character person. The one area we have in depth islinebacker so to say he is going to come and play right away, I don'tknow that. He is going to have to beat some people out. You just look athim physically and you watch him on video and you see that he haspotential, he just has to learn what to do. The advantage is that he ishere for spring ball. He is one of the best looking players we have asfar as physically speaking.

On Jelani Jenkins' decision to sign without Florida without worryingabout playing time:The correlation between him and being a big time player is pretty high.There are guys who are always concerned about second-team this, and what about this, and can I have a written contract. Whereas Jelani Jenkins simply says this is the best academic school, it has the best facilities and the best group of coaches, and I want to be apart of Florida. He didn't ask me about weakside linebacker, strongside linebacker, middle linebacker and all this other stuff and it is very clear that he is confident in his abilities.

On recruit Xavier Nixon:There is a great story on Xavier Nixon in today's paper. His father isin Afghanistan and I actually had a conference call with him andXavier's mother. They are high character people and their morale ishigh; it humbled me. I sat down with a Colonel and he briefed me on thestatus of our country; think about that for a minute while we aresitting here talking. It was an unbelievable experience for me. Then Iwatched Xavier play basketball that night and he is also an excellentstudent, a very high character guy and it is going to be a challengekeeping him off of the field. He just has to get bigger and stronger. Heis a long-armed guy and for those kind of guys it’s harder to getstronger. His only issue is going to be his strength and putting alittle bit more weight on him because he is 275 (pounds) right now. Iwatched him dunk in his basketball game last night, so we are goodthere.

On recruit Mike Gillislee:Mike was one of our first commits. He is a guy that we fell in lovewith last spring. He is from the Orlando area, which is a really strongarea for Coach Strong. His coach, Kevin Pettis, did a great job and hegot a lot of action near the end because it is not like we have a heavystable of running backs here, they are all young. I admire him becausehe also wasn't a guy who was too worried about [playing time]. He isgoing to come in and play and the reason I say this is because it doescome up quite often with Chris Rainey, Jeff Demps, Emmanuel Moody and Brandon James. He will be able to give us a little bigger back. I havegreat respect for him and he will certainly have an impact on specialteams and he catches the ball very well.

On recruiting outside of the state of Florida:I sometimes concern myself with stepping over three or four players togo and get another guy but our track record is pretty good; CarlosDunlap, Brandon Spikes, and all the New Jersey kids are all playing forus. Josh Evans is another one. Connecticut has been a place where we have done some good recruiting. We recruit Florida, Georgia, Texas, and now Connecticut. All of those guys have been having great success so we only go if there is a connection or if there is a need. We don't mass recruit. We don't send a guy out and say go saturate an area, we do very good in the Virginia area, we have a good reputation in D.C. and also in New Jersey.

On not having the need to sign too many recruits:It is easier because that is all we have number wise. It is much moredifficult to sign 28 quality players. In our first year, we startedsigning 28 and six of them are gone within a couple of years justbecause you have stockpiled a couple of positions. It has to be spacedout. At some point in our careers, Florida will sign 16, 18, 21, 18 and20 players. University of Southern Cal does a nice job with that. Younever see them with 37 signees. We want to be between 18 and 21 every year and if we are doing a good job and don't have a mass exit ofjuniors into the NFL, we should be right around there. We are rightwhere we need to be. If someone asks where I want to be four years into the program, this is where. We have 17 signees and we already have 22 players returning on defense.

On the difficulty to recruit players from the Miami area:That question comes up every year and the answer is yes, it isdifficult to get players from Miami. We haven’t had a player fromthere in a while. Dorian Munroe is a guy who will be playing for us.Broward County and Palm Beach have obviously been very good to us. Miami has been a bit harder, but we are doing ok where we are now.

On the difficulty of recruiting after so much success:We see it here all of the time. One thing you find out is when everyschool is comparing themselves to you (Florida), they take a shot atyour academics, at your coaching staff, win and loss record, offense,defense and that we don't run the ball. We certainly do run the ball andwe do it very well. You hear things and just kind of sit back and say‘wow.’ It is a good place to be though, a place that people aretrying to catch right now. The problem is and the thing we can't lethappen is to let them go out there and catch us. They are out theretrying and there are a bunch of guys working their tails off with abull’s eye on the Orange and Blue. It was really bad this year. Idon't want to say it is all negative, it is just that guys are trying tosteal our guys and I'm convinced a couple of guys were recruited by some schools just because they said yes to Florida. I take that as acompliment. When we first got to Florida, we did that. I knew who wasgood in this league, where they were being recruited, how they werebeing recruited, and I went after them. It happened in 1996 after we won the National Championship. The Gators were the target, it was ‘go get the Gators’ and they caught them. We can't let them catch us.

Online Public Information File

Viewers with disabilities can get assistance accessing this station's FCC Public Inspection File by contacting the station with the information listed below. Questions or concerns relating to the accessibility of the FCC's online public file system should be directed to the FCC at 888-225-5322, 888-835-5322 (TTY), or fccinfo@fcc.gov.